


The Man in the Window

by Riddle



Category: Phandom, dan and phil, fantastic foursome - Fandom, youtube - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, Fluff, Gen, Hospital, Hurt, M/M, Sad, bitter sweet, happiness, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 15:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13707309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riddle/pseuds/Riddle
Summary: Dan Howell was dumped in a hospital by parents who couldn't bare to watch his disease take hold. He was ready to give up on everything when a mysterious, powerful, and handsome being peaks into his window and invites him to come on the kind of adventures that Dan could only dream of. Dan finally gets to experience life in all of its joy and beauty, but there is a catch. He will have to give up something terrible and unspoken at the end and it might just break him.





	The Man in the Window

It’s smells.

That was it, that was exactly it, Dan decided. That was the worst part about living in a hospital. Smells are criminally inconsequential to people who don’t have to deal with the air around them always smelling like rubbing alcohol and death. When you can’t escape it though, the scent of a place really decides if it can be a home or not. 

Not that he thought of this place as home though of course. Homes were supposed to be warm safe places that smell like cookies and laundry, or pets and flowers, or whatever. So, hospitals aren’t homes. Even when you live in them…

It had been exactly 3 months 2 weeks and 6 days since he was checked in, so it was fair to say at this point that he lived here. 

But what are they then? Dan stretched back in his bed feeling the IV in his arm and the air cannula strapped onto his face strain to follow his movement. Were they just like normal Not-Home buildings? Did that make them like malls and business centers? No that wasn’t it either Dan decided. He felt his chest wilt a little when he came to the realization that you could leave those kinds of places whenever you wanted, and he was stuck here. So that wasn’t it either. 

The self-pity hadn’t always been a primary character trait for Dan—that was new. If he had to guess, that particular trait was probably about 3 months 2 weeks and 6 days old. 

Dan had his eyes fixed tightly on a poster across from his bed just under the TV that showed misty rolling hills illuminated by a sunrise almost like they were on fire. In white clear font the poster read “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.”

Dan hated that poster. It mocked him. It taunted him, and teased him in every waking moment. It was unrelenting. It was supposed to be inspiring, Dan knew, it was supposed to motivate him to make it from one day to the other but it just felt cruel. The people that used to sleep in this bed might have looked at it and felt hope about the days after they weren’t sick anymore, about how they would take life by the horns and finally take the great adventures they had always put off, but Dan knew that it was just making empty promises reminding him of what would never be. 

The door opened.

Dan didn’t even bother to look because he knew who it was, he was getting far more satisfaction from critiquing the hospital’s unpleasant art choices than he would from seeing Dr. Saunders again with her little needle carrier and her charts filled with nothing but bad news. 

“Hello Daniel,” She strained feigning false optimism “How are you today?” 

He sighed and just tilted his head back so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact. 

“That good huh?” She tried to laugh “Well, I’m going to have to take some blood so we can keep your charts updated before your next treatments. Do you mind?”

Dan just pursed his lips and stretched out his needle arm without a word. 

By the end of Day number 111 when Dr. Saunders and the rest of the staff on the Day Shift went home, Dan couldn’t help but remember that he couldn’t go with them. He could see them walking to get their cars from the parking structures from his window, and it made his throat go dry and hard. He should be used to it by now, but on some level you never really become 100% okay with never getting to leave. 

It was still early in the evening, and the version of him from even just a year ago wouldn’t even think about going to bed for hours to come, but he didn’t have that kind of energy these days. His arm was still wrapped from giving the blood and he couldn’t bend the joint very well. Not that he would want to though, every joint in his body cracked when he moved and seemed to resist his pull like an old door refusing to close all the way through a frame it had outgrown. He ached all the time, but as soon as the sun went down and his night round of meds started kicking in he knew he would get some relief. So he closed his heavy eyes and sunk his heavy raw body into the bed and prayed for sleep. 

It was hard to say exactly how long he had been out when he heard it, but he woke with a start to the sound of a tapping on his window. 

His eyes opened and adjusted slowly in the low light, but he could see the silhouette of a tall figure outside the window crouched and looking in. 

He gasped at first. He couldn’t tell if it was a jumper from psych that changed his mind, or a thief coming to pick meds from the pharmacy, but his gut tensed up and he felt a jolt of adrenaline shoot through his limbs and up his spine. 

But the man just tapped on the window and pointed in, nodding reassuringly and seeming to ask to come in. 

Dan was at a loss for words but for some reason—call it a death wish or just pure shock—Dan found himself nodding and trying to wave the man in with his unbound arm. 

The man smiled and pressed a hand up against the glass pushing the pane in and slipping in through the crack. 

He was incredibly tall—almost as tall as Dan was—and pale with black hair and blue eyes. There was something almost otherworldly about his face, he had a kind of intriguing handsome mystery about him and Dan felt his heart pounding. 

“I’m Phil.” The man said kindly with a sort of awkward but gentle bow 

“I’m Dan.” Dan whispered roughly trying not to upset his stinging dry throat

Phil nodded stepping into the light of the window a little bit further so Dan could see him better. He was dressed in all black wearing a confusing arrangement of miss-matched clothing items all intended for completely different occasions. A suit jacket was placed over a black band t-shirt, and he wore two different black tennis shoes on his feet and black jeans rolled up on only one ankle. He had a beat up old-fashioned top hat on his head, a bandana hanging out from his back pocket, and a wide array of different rings on each of his long light fingers. 

Dan tried to study him hesitantly and with delicacy but Phil had no such delicacy and lurched towards Dan’s bedside decisively. 

“Dan?” He prompted leaning in close over the bed railing

“U-uh yeah?” Dan stuttered 

“How would you feel about going on an adventure?”


End file.
